In a long-sought victory for the gay
rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the
Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage.

The decision, the culmination of decades
of litigation and activism, came against the backdrop of fast-moving
changes in public opinion, with polls indicating that most Americans now
approve of same-sex marriage.

GAY
PRIDE MARCH JUNE 26, WELL- REPORTED JUNE 27 IN THE NW ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Front
page coverage, banner headline: “NWA
Celebrates Ruling,” with large photo in center (and for more: nwadg.com/photos)
, and an article on each side: “Pride Parade Turnout a Record” and “U.S.
Decision on Marriage Settles States’ Challenges.” “On the Inside” lists four related articles,
and “On the Web” directs readers to “Gay Marriage in the U.S., Arkansas,” nwadg.com/gaymarriage,
and “U.S. Supreme Court,” nwadg.com/scotus

Film
of Richard Blanco’s “Until We Could.”

James --
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Freedom to Marry, we asked U.S.
Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco to create an original poem
celebrating love and the freedom to marry. He created a powerful piece called “Until
We Could.”

After reading the poem, Sundance filmmakers and award winners David Lowery and
Yen Tan were inspired to create a short film adaptation of the poem. The film
is narrated by actors Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) and Robin Wright (House
of Cards).

This film – from some of our country’s most talented artists –
vividly shows the meaning of marriage, and reminds us why our fight for the
freedom to marry for all loving couples is so important.
These stories, these voices, these truths – they are the reasons we must stand
together until our work is finished.Watch and share “Until We
Could”:http://www.freedomtomarry.org/until-we-could-poem
Thank you,
Marc Solomon
National Campaign Director, Freedom to Marry

STRUGGLE AGAINST HOMOPHOBIC
BIGOTRY

Gustavus Myers’ History of Bigotry in the United States

We can track
the post-WWII decline of bigotry against gays in several ways. Personally, anecdotally, my home town has
abandoned much of its silence, evasion, secrecy, suppression, and occasional
violence against gays. And social
scientists have increasingly recognized and refuted the national
intolerance. Gustavus Myers History of Bigotry in the United States, published
in 1943, says nothing about gays. But in
1996 the GustavusMyersCenter
for the Study of Bigotry in the United
States recognized 16 outstanding books protesting
bigotry against gays. For these advances
in toleration we can celebrate our country, even while we do not yet see an end
to the tunnels of intolerance. Dick

This book, the fourth in a new series whose major theme is the
radical quest for revolutionary change, explores the politics and roots of the
gay and lesbian liberation movement in the United States. Cruikshank, a lesbian
and gay liberation activist, focuses on the practices, theory, successes,
interconnectedness, and failures of gay liberation activism. She theorizes that
there are three new variables beyond homophobia in attitudes toward gay
society. The factors of heterosexism, heterocentrism, and compulsory
heterosexuality all have a major impact on the development of self and the creation
of a political movement within the gay community. Cruikshank's primary
objective is to make gay liberation understandable to the lay reader and to
encourage further research. A worthy addition to gay studies collections in
larger public and academic institutions.- Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.

The Right to be Parents is the first book to
provide a detailed history of how LGBT parents have turned to the courts to
protect and defend their relationships with their children. Carlos A. Ball
chronicles the stories of LGBT parents who, in seeking to gain legal
recognition of and protection for their relationships with their children, have
fundamentally changed how American law defines and regulates parenthood. To
this day, some courts are still not able to look beyond sexual orientation and
gender identity in cases involving LGBT parents and their children. Yet on the
whole, Ball’s stories are of progress and transformation: as a result of these
pioneering LGBT parent litigants, the law is increasingly recognizing the wide
diversity in American familial structures.

REVIEWS

Ball
trains his keen, compassionate and judicious legal mind on heart-tugging, often
precedent-setting cases that sought to divest parental custody,
visitation and adoption decisions of centuries of gender and sexual bias in US
family jurisprudence. This beautiful, wise book documents and helps to guide
this momentous legal transformation in contemporary definitions of parenthood.
An invaluable, engaging and eloquent contribution to family studies, legal
thought, and public knowledge."

—Judith
Stacey, author of Unhitched: Love, Marriage and Family Values from West
Hollywood to Western China

·“If the adage is true that those who do not learn from history
are doomed to repeat it, then Carlos Ball’s book will be a tremendous antidote
to a hard and painful history. Uninformed and bigoted assumptions about sexual
orientation had devastating consequences for many families. No one who reads
this important work will fail to appreciate that the gains we have made in
greater protection and security for our families came at a very high price for
those parents and children who paved the way."

·"Unique and essential, Professor Ball’s book recounts
compelling tales of lesbian and gay parents fighting in the courts for rights
that most Americans take for granted. The narratives make little-known
histories available even to readers with no legal training, and they also
provide clear explanations of legal issues that have been at stake. A wonderful
contribution, this volume should be of special interest to lesbian and gay
parents and their children as well as to all those who care about them."

—Charlotte
J. Patterson, University of Virginia

·"Ball provides a solid reference for both those arguing in
favor of LGBTQ parental rights and those seeking to understand the legal
arguments advanced by those advocating for them."

Engaging the whole spectrum of public-policy issues
affecting gays and lesbians from a humanistic and philosophical approach,
Richard Mohr uses the tools of his trade to assess the logic and ethics of gay
rights. Focusing on ideas and values, Mohr's nuanced case for legal and social
acceptance applies widely held ethical principles to various issues, including
same-sex marriage, AIDS, and gays in the military. By drawing on cultural-,
legal-, and ethical-based arguments, Mohr moves away from tired political
rhetoric and reveals the important ways in which the struggle for gay rights
and acceptance relates to mainstream American society, history, and political
life. Mohr forcefully counters moralistic and religious arguments regularly
invoked to keep gay men and women from achieving the same rights as
heterosexuals. He examines the nature of prejudices and other cultural forces
that work against lesbian and gay causes and considers the role that sexuality
plays in the national rituals by which Americans define themselves. In his
support of same-sex marriage, Mohr defines matrimony as the development and
maintenance of intimacy through the means by which people meet their basic
needs and carry out their everyday living. Mohr contends that this definition,
in both its legal and moral sense, applies equally to homosexual and
heterosexual couples. Mohr also considers gays and lesbians as community
members as he explores the prospect for greater legal and social inclusion. He
concludes by suggesting that recent progress in addressing civil rights for
gays and lesbians and the nation's symbolic use of gay issues on both sides of
the political spectrum calls for a culturally focused gay politics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard D. Mohr is professor
of philosophy at the University of Illinois-Urbana. He is the author of The
Platonic Cosmology; Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and
Law; Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies; A More
Perfect Union: Why Straight America Must Stand Up for Gay Rights; and Pottery,
Politics, Art: George Ohr and the Brothers Kirkpatrick. A public
intellectual, he has also written for The Nation, The
Advocate, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Boston Globe,
and the Chic

ARKANSAS: HONORING LEGISLATOR GREG LEDING AND MODERN DEMOCRATIC
PARTY COMMITMENT TO EQUALITY

[In 2014] Rep.
Greg Leding filed HB 1959, which adds four words to the state civil rights law
to prohibit discrimination in employment, public accommodations, property
transactions, credit or the political process on grounds of "sexual
orientation, gender identity." The
law already protects in cases of race, religion, national origin or
disabilities.

Call the roll.

The Stonewall Democrats issued a statement.

The Arkansas Stonewall Democratic Caucus is
proud that a brave legislator, Representative Greg Leding, has responded to
ours and the community's call to present HB 1950 to amend the Arkansas Civil
Rights Act to add five simple words: sexual
orientation and gender identity.

After the
introduction of SB 202 which passed and HB 1228, the Stonewall Democratic
Caucus rallied to host a town meeting made up of a panel of legislators to
discuss and educate the public on the two discriminatory bills. Two hundred
people showed up on a Sunday afternoon in extremely rainy and cold weather to
participate in the discussion. We also launched our new logo with the 5 simple
words on it to achieve added awareness.

Arkansas is
experiencing a time where the LGBT community continues to face discriminatory
bills being introduced and passed. A time where only one city in Arkansas has a
non- discrimination ordinance which will be moot after Act 137 goes into
effect. Basically a time where LGBT Arkansans feel not only disenfranchised and
unequal but also targeted by legislation that ensures no legal recourse when
discriminated against. In the rest of the country, thirty seven states have
legalized gay marriage, over 300 Republican leaders have endorsed gay marriage,
and polls continue to show that a majority of Americans believe that gay
marriage should be legal. Many successful cities such as Orlando, Shreveport,
Starkville, Atlanta and Dallas have passed non-discrimination ordinances that
have helped their city's businesses grow and be successful. The vast majority
of Fortune 500 companies have also joined the fight for equality by adopting
LGBT non-discrimination policies including Apple and Walmart who have also
spoken out against discriminatory bills such as SB 202. Poll after poll shows
America's support of not just gay marriage but of gay rights, yet in Arkansas
the LGBT community is under attack.

The South must
not go through another time of discrimination. We were soberly reminded
Saturday of another struggle as many walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama to commemorate the "Bloody Sunday" march of 1965. It
is our hope that Arkansas continues to progress into a state that is welcoming
and accepting of all people regardless of "race, religion, national
origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or the presence of any
sensory, mental, or physical disability......."

Thank you,
Representative Greg Leding for bravely stepping forward and giving us the hope
of a better day where not only will all Arkansans be viewed as equal but will
also be treated equally in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Recently, with the number of students
from higher education and K-12 settings committing suicide, it is apparent
that homophobia and homophobic bullying are tremendous problems in our
schools and universities. However, educators are unclear about an appropriate
process for addressing these challenges. In this book, Jones postulates that
we must begin exploring the culture of educational environments as they
relate to sexual difference, in order to begin conceptualizing ways in which
we may begin to address homophobia and heteronormativity. To that end, this
book addresses how educators (at all levels) must begin examining how their
concepts about different sexual identities are "normalized" through
socializing processes and schooling. In doing so, this book examines how
individuals construct meanings about homophobia and hate language through
"contextual oppositions, " how educational environments maintain a
''false tolerance" when claiming to be tolerant of different sexual
identities, how a hierarchy of hate language exists in educational
environments, among other issues related to creating safe places for all
students. In essence, the book attempts to "un"normalize society's
constructions of sexual identity by deconstructing the social norms.

Life in the United States
today is shot through with uncertainty: about our jobs, our mortgaged houses,
our retirement accounts, our health, our marriages, and the future that awaits
our children. For many, our lives, public and private, have come to feel like
the discomfort and unease you experience the day or two before you get really
sick. Our life is a scratchy throat. John Marsh offers an unlikely remedy for
this widespread malaise: the poetry of Walt Whitman. Mired in personal and
political depression, Marsh turned to Whitman—and it saved his life. In Walt We Trust: How a Queer Socialist Poet Can Save America from
Itself is a book about how Walt Whitman can save America’s
life, too.

Marsh
identifies four sources for our contemporary malaise (death, money, sex,
democracy) and then looks to a particular Whitman poem for relief from it. He
makes plain what, exactly, Whitman wrote and what he believed by showing how
they emerged from Whitman’s life and times, and by recreating the places and
incidents (crossing Brooklyn ferry, visiting wounded soldiers in hospitals)
that inspired Whitman to write the poems. Whitman, Marsh argues, can show us
how to die, how to accept and even celebrate our (relatively speaking) imminent
death. Just as important, though, he can show us how to live: how to have
better sex, what to do about money, and, best of all, how to survive our fetid
democracy without coming away stinking ourselves. The result is a mix of
biography, literary criticism, manifesto, and a kind of self-help you’re
unlikely to encounter anywhere else.

Percy
Bysshe Shelley taught us that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the
world.” True enough. But Walt Whitman has always been more than an
unacknowledged legislator. He has been and remains our unacknowledged founder.
Born as Thomas Jefferson was fretting that the revolutionary “Spirit of 76″ was
being lost, Whitman grabbed the twin standards of enlightenment and possibility
and carried them across the bridge from the days of Tom Paine to the present.
His radical journey is our radical journey, and John Marsh captures the very
essence of Whitman, and America, in this brilliant book.

—John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation

Marsh shares his affection for Walt Whitman in this gentle, thoughtful
consideration of the poet’s relevance to 21st-century America. Beset by moral
malaise in his 30s, the author ‘suffered from fully-grown doubts, not just
growing doubts, about the meaning of life and the purpose of our country.’
Whitman’s insights on death, money, sex and democracy buoyed his spirits….
Marsh confesses his love for the legendary poet, and by the end of this
insightful homage, readers are likely to feel the same.

—Kirkus Reviews

Marsh rises to the challenge of surveying the broad banks of Whitman’s
work…. Prophetic, timely, and not nearly as impractical as he may sometimes
seem (though just as flighty), Whitman is to Marsh just as much a poet for his
time as for ours—though we have the benefit of hindsight to adopt the wisdom of
his foresight.

—Boston Globe

In Walt We Trust is
one of the most engaged and engaging books on Whitman that I’ve read in many
years. Marsh offers us a kind of autobiography of his years of reading Whitman,
revealing at every turn just why it is that Whitman matters—why, in fact,
reading him is a matter of life and death. Marsh takes us on a cultural journey
from Jimmy Carter’s ‘malaise’ speech to the Occupy movement to a trip across
the East River on the recently reopened Brooklyn ferry to a strip club in
Pennsylvania to a drive through beleaguered Camden, New Jersey, and at each
stop we are brought back to Whitman’s poetry in surprising, moving, and
revelatory ways. Once every generation or so, we need a book like this one to
remind us why, in the twenty-first century, it is still so essential to keep
Whitman close at hand.

A beautiful, moving, and original book about our nation’s greatest
poet.

—Mark Edmundson, University Professor, University of Virginia;
author, Why Teach?

As soon as I read John Marsh’s claim early in this fine new book of
popular criticism, that in reading Whitman he learned how to die, I became his
appreciative audience. Marsh does not buy into the mushy transcendental side of
Whitman’s notion that death avails not, but looks to the poet’s views on
ownership and property to understand the transience of life and the meaning of
coming face to face with death. Along with his treatment of shame and
shamelessness in Whitman’s poetry of the body, the connection of the greed for
property and the fear of death is one of several original touches in this
personal and engaging book based mainly on close reading of Whitman’s poems and
prose works placed alongside reflections on the state of contemporary America.
Even if you do not buy into Marsh’s big idea that Whitman can save us all, you
will find much to admire in this charming and intelligent book of essays on
America’s foremost poet.

—Jimmie Killingsworth, Professor of English, Texas A&M
University; author,Whitman’s Poetry of
the Body and Walt
Whitman and the Earth

John
Marsh is
associate professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. He is the
author of two previous books: Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach
or Learn Our Way out of Inequality and Hog
Butchers, Beggars, and Busboys: Poverty, Labor, and the Making of Modern
American Poetry. Marsh is also the editor of You
Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941. He lives in State
College, Pennsylvania, with his wife and daughter.

GLOBAL STRUGGLE, TWO
EXAMPLES OF ORGANIZATIONS Working in Uganda

CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

March
with CCR at LGBTQI Pride June 28, 2015

CCR
Newsletter June 1, 2015

. . .We will be
joined by our friends and clients from Sexual Minorities Uganda,
supporters and staff. If you’re in the NYC area, you are heartily
invited to join us! The Pride March is an opportunity to commemorate the Stonewall Riots
that ushered in the modern queer rights movement, celebrate LGBTQI communities
and rededicate ourselves to the unfinished struggle for full equality. An
exact march lineup time and location will not be announced until a few days
before the march on Sunday, June 28; please register to march
with CCR and we will send you the details when
they are available.

Throughout the 1990s, CCR fought for the rights
of gays and lesbians to serve in the Peace Corps, march in the St. Patrick’s
Day Parade, receive funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, and
promote safe sex and AIDS awareness, among other efforts. In recent years, we
have also successfully fought on behalf of people who were forced to register
as sex offenders as a result of convictions under homophobic sodomy laws. Our
commitment to LGBTQI rights has taken us beyond our borders as well. The
growing exportation of homophobic agendas by U.S. conservatives to other parts
of the world has propelled efforts to criminalize LGBTQI people's very
existence, along with all advocacy on their behalf, in countries like Uganda and Russia. CCR is suing anti-gay
extremist Scott Lively, one of the key
figures behind the persecution of LGBTQI Ugandans, on behalf of SMUG, and we
are working with LGBTQI organizations and allies in multiple countries where LGBTQI people are under attack as a result
of interference by U.S.-based extremists. Read more about
our work on LGBTQI issues.rom the Ark Times Blog 3-9-15

POLITICAL
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES PRA

New Documentary
"Exporting Hate"

focuses
on the man behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda and features PRA expertise

In 2009, the
Ugandan Parliament proposed an anti-homosexuality bill that would impose the
death penalty on serial offenders of homosexual acts. Inciting fear and
sanctioning homophobia, the bill has caused LGBT Ugandans to be hunted in their
communities and forced into exile.

Political
Research Associates showed that for years American conservatives have been
enlisting African clerics in the U.S.
culture wars, and these clerics carried the Right's homophobic political agenda
back to Africa. Our groundbreaking report
Globalizing the Culture Wars exposed the story to U.S. and international audiences.

Now, In The
Life Media has produced Exporting Hate, a documentary that
focuses on the man behind the bill and his supporters, and exposes the
political and financial influence used by powerful conservatives in the U.S.
to export their anti-gay agenda. PRA Project Director Rev. Kapya Kaoma is a
featured expert in the documentary who gives commentary on the influence of the
Right on anti-homsexuality laws in Uganda. . . .

About Political
Research Associates

Political
Research Associates (PRA) is an independent, nonprofit, progressive research
center for activists defending
democracy, building equality, and challenging bigotry and oppression promoted
by sectors of the Political Right.

After 9-11, the U.S government
embraced the use of torture, renouncing its global leadership role on this
issue. Thanks in part to the work we did in partnership with military leaders
and interrogation and intelligence professionals, President Obama signed
an executive order banning torture. In time, the landmark Senate Intelligence
Committee torture report was released, documenting a program that was far more
brutal and widespread than Americans were led to believe. We're urging the
Obama Administration and Congress to introduce legislation to make loophole
lawyering impossible and ensure that our country never tortures again.

(a) Countries that are not
party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, ... to ensure that the right to physical and
mental integrity of children is well ... human rightsinstitutions should be
granted access to all places of detention with a ...

Dec 12, 2014 - Corruption Is Now
Officially Legal in the U.S., But Must Be Done Right ... The Media Is Focusing On the
WRONG Senate Torture Report ..... no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
– intelligence they received in plenty of time to ...

Dec 19, 2014 - [The media's]
justification for this is, "Well, it's not up for us to resolve debates.
... [the fact that] we don't hear from the victims of torture, because to hear .... out
there, but this shows how controlled the main stream media can be.

Sep 2, 2014 - This week's Mainstream Media Scream features two
MSNBC newsies blaming ... issue and they're going to torture our hostages with
that knowledge. ... So, the U.S. should be inhibited from pursuing information from
terrorists ...